The lawyers for an Ottawa man accused of a 1980 terrorist bombing in Paris spent another day trying to discredit evidence against their client Tuesday.
The evidence from French handwriting experts is "spectacularly unprofessional and unreliable," according to Donald Bayne, who is defending former Carleton University professor Hassan Diab, who is accused of taking part in a 1980 Paris bombing that killed four people
Bayne said the experts he used compared written characters Diab wrote recently to words French examiners used and came to the conclusion the recent writing patterns of Diab are nowhere near the results the French examiners submitted.
Bayne said the handwriting experts he used submitted results that stated the written comparisons examined were not even vaguely similar and were "clearly not the same pen movement." The experts were also highly critical of the methodology used by the French examiners, saying that the it "falls short of a competent forensic document examiner" and has led to Diab's misidentification as being involved in the Paris bombings.
The court is also reviewing intelligence information from the French government as part of the extradition hearing. Bayne said the decision not to allow the intelligence information as permissible evidence should be easy for the judge because it's "strange" that type of information is part of a criminal case in front of a Canadian court in the first place.
"Its very nature is to be secret and unknowable," said Bayne about the intelligence information.
In a previous court appearance Bayne argued Canada already has dealt with the "perils of unsourced intelligence," referring to cases such as that of Maher Arar.
Diab faces extradition to France and his hearing is scheduled for sometime in January.
derek.puddicombe@sunmedia.ca